


Same Face In a Different Frame

by nightshiftblues



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: (that's not a joke), Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bad omens, Gaslighting, Haunting, Insomnia, M/M, Mild Horror, Mistaken Identity, Nonconsensual, Paranormal, Possession, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sexual Coercion, Unhappy Ending, Unreliable Narrator, deception leads to sex, following tags are spoilers, graphic description of spoiled milk, inadequate prep, mental illness mention, unprotected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 16:15:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15777600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightshiftblues/pseuds/nightshiftblues
Summary: Hamilton knows better than to fuck with the spiritual world - Lafayette doesn’t. In fact, Lafayette makes a side hustle out of fucking with the spiritual world. One day an ugly antique rocking chair appears in their living room, Lafayette starts sleepwalking, and Hamilton finds himself sharing an apartment with a third, uninvited roommate.





	Same Face In a Different Frame

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to a pal who salvaged this thing from Google translated French.  
> I did my best to tag all the (numerous) potentially triggering aspects to this thing, let me know if I missed something.

Alexander’s relief at finally being home after a long day of lectures followed by a shift of delightful minimum wage customer service is short lived. He barely makes it into the apartment before his steps come into an abrupt halt.

“Laf, what the hell is that?”

Dead center of their open-plan kitchen-slash-living-room sits an antique rocking chair carved out of dark, polished wood. It’s so large and heavy-looking that Alex idly wonders how many people it took to haul the thing to the second-floor entrance of the apartment. It looks almost comically out of place in the context of their outdated, overpriced New York apartment crammed full of affordable second-hand furniture and half-dead plotted plants Gilbert has desperately tried to nicen the place up with (though the effect is more ‘badly maintained rainforest’ than ‘cozy living space’). It takes up the entire space made between the sofa and the flimsy coffee table, blocking the way to the bookcase.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” Gilbert calls from the bedroom.

“We’ve talked about this,” Alex hollers and releases his shoulder from the weight of his bag, heavy with textbooks. “No more salvaging furniture that you’re ‘totally gonna upcycle as soon as you have the time’ when we both know damn well that you won’t.”

“Oh, this is much better.” Gilbert emerges from the bedroom and pulls Alex into a greeting hug and a cheek kiss, which he half-heartedly returns because he’s not made of stone. “This is an investment.”

 _Oh, even better._ That would be Gilbert-speak for ‘one or more people have claimed this item is cursed and/or magical, and someone will pay well for it’.

Sure enough, Alexander’s roommate drops into the chair with a flourish and elaborates: “A rich and powerful man from the deep South passed away in this chair. There have been numerous reports of people finding it warm, as if it has been recently sat on, and sometimes it rocks by itself at night.”

Gilbert rocks back for emphasis and the chair lets out a loud groan, like it’s protesting against being used by someone other than its original owner. Like an osteoporosis-ridden skeleton of an old man.

Alex plants his hands on his hips and tries to look authoritative. “Well that’s all fine and dandy, but I don’t want it cramming our living room. Take it down to the thrift shop, Laf.”

Maybe Alex inherited some of his dad’s Scottish superstition (along with the host of trust and intimacy and abandonment issues), or maybe it’s his mother’s habit of counting any flock of dark birds gathering on their yard for future omens still affecting him, but he has never been a big fan of this little side business of Lafayette’s. Suddenly Alexander recalls with flashback-like clarity being a little kid sitting on his dad’s tobacco-smelling lap and being told stories of the tortured souls still roaming the damp halls of the family mansion somewhere in the Highlands. It’s probably a made-up memory, based on something he read online at some point and reconstructed in his mind to make up for actual fond memories involving his father. It still raises up the peach fuzz at the back of his neck.

None of it can be rationalized particularly well of course, and Alex doesn’t care for making arguments based on something as unquantifiable and gut feeling, so most days he lets it go. Gilbert is a business savvy guy, and has a bit of a reputation in the ‘occult community’ or whatever it’s called. And it helps pay the bills, eat out every now and again, so who is Alex to complain? But usually it’s stuff like antique dolls, creepy paintings, Ouija boards carved out of the cross Jesus was nailed onto (based on the price tag anyway). Stuff that can be tucked into a cupboard until the right buyer is located and the bidding is completed. Easy enough to ignore, unlike this creaking monstrosity.

Of course, Lafayette isn’t going down without a fight. He stands up and directs his poutiest expression at Alex point blank.

“Just hear me out here, friend,” he pleads and rests his palms on Alexander’s shoulders. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity! The estate of the family was auctioned off and the chair was sold with a _fraction_ of what it’s worth. If I wait for the right buyer, and _especially_ if I manage to document some activity, this can really change things for us.”

The ‘document some activity’-bit makes Alexander’s guts turn uncomfortably.

“’Us’?” He pries his eyes away from Gilbert’s large, disarmingly earnest ones (that’s how he gets you) and makes for the bedroom door. “I think you mean you, and treating lunch won’t cut it here. Rent a warehouse if you need to, I want the chair out by tomorrow and that’s final.”

“I’ll give you a cut of the profit for putting up with it,” Laf calls after him.

“Don’t care.”

“Five thousand dollars.”

Alex freezes, the door halfway open and his fingers gripping the handle. “Bullshit.”

“Five thousand dollars,” Gilbert repeats. “Apiece. I’ve seen these kinds of deals before. This chair is tourist attraction-material, and tourist attraction-material sells. I know a guy, I just need time to get ahold of him.”

_The answer is no. The answer is no. He knows you’ll get over it when it doesn’t sell for that much. You’re getting played, Alex._

Oh, but as all that runs through his mind, Alexander’s mental calculator also works out that $5K dollars equals roughly 450 hours of work on a New York minimum wage. 450 hours he could spend tackling the mountain of readings stacking up for his courses, editing papers, writing blog posts, replying to emails, hell, maybe even sleeping for more than 5 consecutive hours, rather than fetching extra hummus for a rude soccer mom who probably won’t even tip. All for tolerating some chair in his living room that sounds like something straight out of a _’24 Scariest Real-life Haunted Objects’_ Buzzfeed article. They already own an armchair lined with zebra print for Christ’s sake, it’s not as though the apartment has a tasteful aesthetic for the rocking chair to ruin to begin with.

Alex feels his shoulders slump as his resolve crumbles. What does he see a therapist for if not to move past the anxieties his father instilled into him? Rationally, he knows that it’s just a chair that possibly creaks sometimes as the ancient wood components bend and settle. A chair that has the potential to pay their rent on time for once.

“Fine,” says after a drawn-out pause. “But you better be right about this one.”

“Splendid!” Gilbert claps and jumps up and down. “I won’t let you down, you know I know a deal when I see one.”

He does. Black Friday and spring sales are an experience and a half with Gilbert, not for the faint of heart.

Gilbert strides up to Alex and massages his thumbs into the tense line of his shoulders. _This man has me wrapped around his little finger._ “It will be _fine,”_ he coos into Alexander’s ear. “Don’t be mad. Are you going to sleep on the couch now?”

That’s what Alex did for the first few months after moving into the single-bedroom apartment with Gilbert. The pull-out couch converts into a passable bed, and his back has lived through worse. But as it turns out, Alex likes being held at night and the double bed from Lafayette’s old apartment is sizeable enough. And there’s nothing wrong with the occasional friendly handjob between guys, especially guys who happen to be too busy and manic to maintain actual relationships.

He leans into the touch, gradually lets go of the tension that has made a home in his shoulder muscles. “You really think I wanna sleep in the same room with the creepy grandpa chair? No thanks.”

Lafayette can clearly tell the affront is filtering out of Alexander’s voice - he blows on the base of Alexander’s neck playfully. “Maybe I can do something to help you relax then, _oui?”_

Alex bites his lip to keep his grin down. “That’s a bad excuse for a blowjob.”

Laf snorts and nips at Alexander’s earlobe with his teeth. “Do you really think I need one?”

 

~~~

 

It takes an exceptionally uneventful week to make Alex feel silly about the strength of his initial aversion to having the chair in the apartment. He barely sees it anyway, between his preparation for the approaching midterms and all the evening shifts he’s covering for his beloved coworkers at Applebee’s.

“You will not believe what this musty, gluten free brownies-baking, MLM-consultant-looking bitch told me after I brought her the ribs she ordered,” he hollers as soon as he steps into the apartment. Doctor Konapka doesn’t like it when Alex spends their sessions ranting about stupid customers, so Lafayette is the standard outlet for his work-frustrations.

He pitches his voice up and puts on an exaggerated Manhattan accent. “’Why are there bones in my ribs?’ she asks! And I go, ‘well madam, they’re ribs, they typically have bones in them’, and she goes ‘well _duh,_ but why are they so large-‘”

This is the part where it registers that Gilbert is sitting on the floor of their living room, his back against the radiator, his laptop and sketchbooks spread out around him in a semicircle like a protective field.

“Laf, why are you on the floor?”

“Hm?” Lafayette looks confused, like he doesn’t understand the question. He points his thumb to the radiator. “It’s warm.”

He’s wearing a thin, navy-blue cardigan over his t-shirt and seems comfortable enough. The apartment is at a normal temperature even with the central heating turned off, the warmth of the summer still refusing to make way for the oncoming autumn chill. “You do realize you could just turn up the heating enough to raise the general temperature of the room, right?” Alex says slowly.

Gilbert stares up at him for a moment in silence, blinks a few times. “I like to be against the warm,” he says eventually.

Alex awaits for elaboration for a moment, clicks his tongue and heads for the kitchen. One learns to take these things in stride after some time of co-habitation with a guy as bizarrely European as Lafayette.

“It feels nice,” he hears Gilbert say to himself as he snaps the kettle on.

“Want coffee?”

“Tea, please, if you will.” Gilbert smiles at Alex gratefully from his floor-spot. Maybe it helps with concentration, not getting too comfortable. “Now, tell me more about this rib-lady.”

 

~~~

 

Alexander’s grip on sleep (which tends to be pretty loose to begin with) starts to slip with the sensation of fingers carding through his hair. They still as he sniffles and nuzzles into the gentle touch, then carry on their exploration. Brush over his cheekbone, the bridge of his nose. A carefully clipped and filed fingernail scrapes on the chewed-up skin of his lower lip.

There’s something about it. Something Alex struggles to wrap his mind around in his half-conscious state. The brush of the fingers is nice, warm and intimate, but also slow and considering. Like it’s searching for a subtle crack in a delicate glass sculpture.

“Gil?” he croaks, his voice hoarse with sleep. He cracks an eye open and struggles to adjust to the darkness - it must be late. The ever-present glow of fluorescent lights filters through the narrow crack between the thick, drawn curtains. Alex can barely make out the silhouette of Gilbert’s face, the poof of his curls escaped from the usual ponytail. They’re facing each other, only inches apart.

Alex blinks and pulls back. “Why are you awake?”

“Shhh.” Gilbert cups the side of Alexander’s face and swipes his thumb over his lips as he shushes him. “You are quite beautiful, actually. Sweet and quiet like this.”

Alexander’s eyes fall shut again, heavy with the proper sleep medication Doc Konapka finally prescribed for him after weeks of pestering. Maybe he’s having a strange dream or something.

“There we are.” Gilbert brushes a strand of hair behind his ear. “Warm and cozy.”

Alex lets himself be tucked into the open, inviting space between those firm arms until his face is nuzzled against Gilbert’s chest. The familiar scent soothes him, pushes aside the alarm trying to surface at the back of his mind as he drifts back to sleep.

 

~~~

 

Stray cats never visit anymore. Alex raises an eyebrow at the untouched water and turkey pellets as he steps into the apartment, balancing the week’s groceries in his arms. Gilbert got a cat flap installed as soon as they moved in (landlord’s permissions and deposits be damned) and they’ve been coming and going since, some more regularly than others. Most of them aren’t really strays per se, but cats from the surrounding apartment complexes. They tend to visit whenever their owners are away or just unable to buy them food. It’s really quite sweet, that Gilbert immediately thought about all the pets of the nearby drug addicts.

Alex darts into the kitchen before his arms give out and flicks the kettle on, leaves the milk on the counter and unpacks everything else into the cabinets and fridge. Gilbert will be late at work so he’s on kitchen duty tonight.

Alex stills as he straightens up; there’s a magpie sitting on the fire escape right outside the window behind the sink. It peers at Alex with a tilted head and a knowing look it its eyes. He leans into the counter and stares right back, though it can’t probably really see him through the glass.

 _Good afternoon Mr Magpie, how fare your lady wife?_ Alexander’s mother would ask any lone crow that she encountered. A single magpie is supposed to be an omen of sorrow while two bring joy, so Alex supposes the idea is to trick fate by acknowledging two magpies instead of one.

It was probably a habit his mom picked up from his dad, now that he thinks about it; Alex doesn’t think there even are magpies in Nevis, just other types of crows.

The bird takes flight with jerky abruptness and Alex flinches out of the strange thought tangent.

He changes the cat water and adds fresh food in case the neighborhood cats get tired of their sudden boycott, and steps into the bedroom while the coffee brews. He turns on the radio, filters through the channels to find something decent. Lafayette has a bizarre habit of tuning into the most local radio stations he can find, the ones that play the most underground rappers of the neighborhood during the small hours. It could be a masochism-thing, or a manifestation of his unique sense of humor, Alex isn’t completely sure. He finds a station that’s playing Rihanna and cranks up the volume.

_Croak._

Alex goes completely still, his fingers still on the volume nub. The sound of groaning, old wood against the cheap paneling of the floor is nearly drowned out by the music, but too distinct not to be recognizable.

It broad fucking daylight, and _Bitch Better Have My Money_ is playing on full blast. There is nothing ominous or mysterious or atmospheric to this incredibly banal setting, and yet Alexander’s mouth goes dry and goosebumps rise over the skin of his arms.

He turns down the volume and listens.

Silence.

After a few calming breaths, Alex pokes his head into the living room. For a fraction of a second he thinks he catches a hint of movement, like the chair is settling, but he knows it’s paranoia playing a trick on his mind. The chair sits completely still. The noise must have come from a neighboring apartment. The walls are laughably thin; sometimes Alex hears footsteps and thinks Lafayette has returned without him noticing, only to find the apartment empty. It happens.

He shakes the feeling of unease, turns the music back up and pours himself a coffee large enough to last him through the night.

When Alex unscrews the cork of the milk and goes to pour his usual dash of 2% into the mug, something almost solid plops into the liquid and sends scalding droplets of coffee on his hand and the counter. The smell hits him full force and makes him retch, the pungent, rancid sourness of it overwhelming his nose with every inhale.

He tilts the can over the sink and the spoiled milk sludges out in clumps. Most of it only goes down the drain once he slams the faucet on, and he forces the biggest clumps of spoiled milk down the drain with a dishrag. Once the carton is empty and rinsed several times, Alex flips it and checks the use by date - a whole week away. He curls his lip; must be some mistake with the factory. If he hadn’t disposed of the evidence, he could take it back and demand a refund, but getting rid of the source of the disgustingness had seemed like a more pertinent priority at the time.

Alex texts Gilbert to bring milk on his way home and snatches a bottle of Mr Muscle from under the sink. He needs to eliminate the lingering smell if he wants to have an appetite by nightfall.

He forgets about the creaking sound by the time dinner is ready.

~~~

Alex is not supposed to look at screens for an hour after taking his sleep medication (to help with his ‘sleep quality’), so he’s doing the dishes as the clock strikes twelve that night. An audio book on civil litigation in urban areas plays in his headphones as he scrubs down, dries and puts away several days’ worth of dirty dishes. He tries not to clatter the cheap porcelain too loudly; Gilbert is already asleep, and lord knows he lately seems like he needs a good rest, all irritable and distracted.

For the same reason, Alex hisses under his breath as he slices his finger on the sharp lid of the tuna can he was rinsing for recycling. He prods at the aching skin until blood starts to seep out and sighs. Go figure.

The medicine cabinet in the bathroom is splendidly cluttered. Alex rummages through the countless packs of aspirin, antidepressants he stopped taking last spring, stray strips of birth control left behind by Laf’s ex (that fling didn’t last long), and countless packs of painkillers. There are several, already opened packs of gauze, but that seems like a bit of an overkill.

“You should come to bed.”

It there was something for Alex to bump his head against, he would – he didn’t hear Lafayette approaching at all because of the earbuds.

“Oh shi- Hey there,” he sputters, yanking the earbuds out. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

Lafayette leans against the doorframe, a distant and slightly irritated look in his eyes. “The bed is cold.”

“Uh.” Alex frowns. “Sorry, I’ll be there soon.” He turns back to the medicine cabinet. “Whose dick do I gotta suck to acquire a fucking plaster in this household?”

He startles as Gilbert’s fingers wrap around his wrist. The look in his roommate’s eyes seems a whole less disoriented as he raises Alexander’s finger to his mouth and sucks on the blood, a warm tongue sweeping against the stinging cut.

“Um.”

“You should come to bed,” Gilbert repeats. “You was sleepin’ so peacefully the other night.”

Alex goes mute, just follows obediently as Gilbert starts to pull him towards the bedroom by the wrist.

Gilbert doesn’t speak like that. No one Alex knows speaks like that, not even Professor Washington whose roots are so deep in Virginian old money that he chastises Alex for disparaging his home state during class discussions about the Civil fucking War.

Could it be sleepwalking?

Gilbert doesn’t _look_ asleep as he lays them down carefully, pulls up the blanket and clasps Alexander’s hand between his. He doesn’t look asleep when his dark eyes glint at Alex in the darkness of the bedroom as he asks: “Do you need me to kiss the booboo away?”

Alex flips around so that his back is pressed against Gilbert’s broad, muscled chest. “It’s alright thanks, let’s just try and get some sleep.”

A stretching pause is followed by Gilbert’s arm snaking around his waist and pulling him in so tightly Alex lets out a breathy exhale.

“Of course, I’m not going anywhere. Sweet dreams, darlin’.”

 

~~~

 

The problem with the schedule-hell they’re both in is that Alex doesn’t really get a chance to bring up the sleepwalking. The following morning Gilbert barely stirs as Alex tells him goodbye and rushes out of the door for his 9 am lecture. Then there’s tutorials, then library, then work, and by the time he makes it back home, he finds Gilbert the way he left him – tangled up in sheets and breathing deeply like he hasn’t rested in months.

Alex raises an eyebrow – 11 pm is a little bit early to already be asleep for Gilbert – but shrugs and takes care not to disturb him. He scrubs away the smell of Applebee’s in the shower, takes a melatonin instead of his heavy-duty Ambien because he has no lectures or work tomorrow and Doctor Konapka wouldn’t want him to take the dugs unless he absolutely has to force the sleep in order to get through the following day. Which, admittedly, is most days but hey, he’s trying and that has to count for something.

He chugs down a cup of instant noodles (looks like Gil hasn’t even gotten up to make food, which is slightly concerning), trips into his t-shirt and boxers and crawls into bed with his roommate.

Before Alex drifts to sleep, his eyes catch Gilbert’s phone on the nightstand. Being the model roommate he is, he picks it up and plugs it in to charge – Lafayette would thank him in the morning.

 _‘7 calls from Adrienne’_ the screen says as it lights up.

Alex frowns at that – Adrienne is Gilbert’s boss and close friend. He rolls over to glance at Gilbert face, and only now notices a sheen of sweat on his roommate’s forehead.

“You sick or something?” Alex murmurs and presses the back of his hand on Gilbert’s forehead. The skin feels like a normal temperature, slightly cool even. Alex frowns – it would take being severely bedridden to keep Gilbert out of work, him being the most enthusiastic social worker in the country and all that.

“Laf?” he says experimentally.

Gilbert stirs but ends up only making grabby hands at Alex. He sighs and decides to leave the issue until next morning. He knows what it’s like to be tired if anyone.

He’s well into deep sleep when he’s shaken out of his dreaming state by his shoulders-

“Alex? Alex!”

“Huh?” he croaks and swats at the hands relentlessly shaking him back and forth. “Gil?”

“A-Alex, _putain de merde!”_

It is Gilbert, gripping his shoulders with quivering fingers and staring down at him in the dark, his eyes wide with terror.

“Gil?” he whispers and blinks the remaining specks of sleep out of his eyes. “Are you okay?”

Gilbert’s breathing is quick and panicked. He maintains his iron grip even as Alex sits up. “It was so cold, I couldn’t move, _j'essayai de courir_ but I couldn’t, I couldn’t move my legs,” he babbles in a delirious mess of French and English.

“Gilbert, what are you-“

“You need to get that chair away from me, _vite,_ before he comes back!”

“Slow down-“

“He’s too strong, Alex, I can’t keep him-“

“Laf!” Alex cuts in and frames his friend’s face with his hands. “Who are you talking about?”

Alex has never seen Gilbert like this, eyes wide and panicked and darting every which way like he was seeing demons in every shadow, and it’s causing his own heart rate to pick up. “Jefferson,” Gilbert hisses like someone in the next room might hear.

Alex blinks. “Thomas Jefferson?”

He did his googling; Thomas Jefferson is the guy who died in the rocking chair currently in their living room. Now that Alex is more awake, he recalls Gilbert’s apparent absence from work, his sweaty and dishelmed state. _A fever dream, maybe?_

“You need to get that chair out of his apartment, so he can’t reach me,” Gilbert whispers. “I can’t keep him out, he’s in my skin and in my, in my… He wants…” Gilbert is crying now, swallowing around his words.

“Okay,” Alex says with his most level voice. “Okay, I’ll take the chair out to the street, it’ll be gone by the time the garbage truck comes around.” He rubs at Gilbert’s shaking shoulders as calmingly as he can and stands up slowly. “Just, um, wait here, I’ll be right back.”

Gilbert’s hand shoots out and his fingers wrap around Alexander’s wrist before he can take a step.

Alex frowns. “…Gilbert?”

Gilberts wipes at his eyes. “Ah, _mon cher,_ sorry about this. I just had a nightmare.” He chuckles. “Sorry, I did not mean to startle you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Alex shifts his weight from one foot to another. “Look, I can still take the chair out if it’s causing you all this-“

“No!” Gilbert’s hold on Alexander’s wrist tightens and loosens again in quick succession. He lifts his head and smiles at Alex apologetically. “Could you just stay with me?”

Alex exhales slowly and lowers himself back onto the mattress. He pulls Gilbert’s quivering form into his arms.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs and rubs at his friend’s shoulders in calming circles. “I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere. _I’m right here,”_ he murmurs into Gil’s hair. Arms wrap around his middle and pull him close. Gilbert presses his nose against the crook of Alexander’s neck and inhales deep between shaky breaths.

“Promise you won’t leave me,” he says into the dip of skin between Alexander’s collar bones.

“I promise,” he whispers into the darkness, apprehension and worry twisting his insides. They’ve both calmed down a great deal, and yet a sense of unease keeps blocking his throat.

Gilbert lays down and guides Alex to follow, pulls him against his chest even tighter.

“Gilbert?” Alex whispers and rubs the back of his neck. “Gilbert, talk to me.”

He startles as he feels a grace of lips on his pulse point. At first he thinks it’s incidental, just Gilbert seeking comforting contact with every surface of his body, but then it repeats and Alex flushes as he realizes that Gilbert is kissing his neck.

“Gil?”

“Can I? Please?” he mumbles into Alexander’s skin.

Confusion leaves Alex lying still as Gilbert’s soft lips trace the line of his neck. Maybe it’s the surge of adrenaline, or maybe Gilbert just needs affectionate touch to come down from his nightmare more than Alex realizes. It’s hard to say whether this is a normal reaction for Gilbert or not, they’ve never been in this scenario before. Alex is at a loss; should he decline for Gilbert’s own sake (he’s probably not thinking perfectly rationally right now), or offer up whatever comfort his body can give?

“We are on quite affectionate terms.“ Gilbert glances at Alexander’s face, a peculiar sort of curious glint in his eyes. “Are we not?”

Alex wets his lips. He feels a wrinkle forming between his brows. “Uh, sure.”

They stare each other down in silence for a moment. The atmosphere of the apartment has changed lately, and Alex just can’t seem to put his finger on _why._ As soon as he steps out of the door into the constantly turning, rational outside world, it’s easy to brush the concern off, chalk it up to stress. It’s easy to forget about this sense of tension like a cold draft on his skin when it’s not actively raising up the hairs on his arms.

“Yes, I’m certainly quite fond of you,” Gilbert murmurs, fingers threading into Alexander’s loose hair. “We share a bed, and we share quite a few intimacies in this bed, no?”

Lafayette’s English is perfectly fluent these days, has been for years, but that hint of a French cadence turning his speech melodic never left. There’s something strange about it now, something Alex probably wouldn’t even notice it he wasn’t a native French speaker himself. It’s like a French accent someone puts on at a party, one that you know you probably shouldn’t laugh at but do anyway because it’s so accurate.

Maybe the nightmare affected Gilbert in some really strange ways. Alex is still just a bit too groggy with sleep to make sense of it.

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask.” He peers at Gilbert, still laying extremely close to him, looking at him with dark eyes still wet with tears. “Do you sleepwalk sometimes?”

“Oh, _all_ the time,” Gilbert says and leans in again, brushes the bridge of his nose against Alexander’s jawline.

“Really?” Alex tries to regulate his breathing and keep his mind focused on this strange late-night conversation rather than the fingers drawing patterns on the skin just above the waistband of his boxers. “Because I don’t recall that ever being a thing, until just recently.”

“It tends to happen in – what’s the word? – intervals. Particularly when I strain myself. Nothing to fret over,” Gilbert murmurs against his jawline.

Alex swallows and places a hand on Gilbert’s midriff. “Seriously Gil, is everything alright?”

Fingers close around his chin and his head is tilted back not entirely gently. Alexander’s breathing turns shallow and slightly frantic as he feels Gilbert’s warm breath on his pulse point, followed by a graze of lips.

“Oh, I’m as good as new,” he murmurs into Alexander’s skin. “I just need you right now.”

The thickness remaining in his voice from his earlier crying spell makes Alexander’s defenses crumble.

“O-okay?” he whispers and Gilbert’s mouth is immediately on his.

Gilbert rolls onto his back and pulls Alex on top of him, hands slipping under his loose shirt and brushing up and down his spine. Alex lets his mouth fall open and Gilbert’s tongue immediately pushes in and sweeps against his. The familiarity of it feels so nice and comforting that Alex finds himself relaxing under the touch despite himself. Maybe this is something they both need, after all the stress and strangeness of the past couple of weeks.

The noise Gilbert makes is somewhere between a hum and a groan. “So warm,” he mumbles against Alexander’s mouth and the soft drag of his lips elicits a shiver. Alex lets Gilbert set the pace and gets pulled into a second, slow kiss while Gilbert tugs his hair behind his ear and runs his fingers through the slightly matted strands.

Gilbert rolls them over again and Alex gasps into his mouth; there’s a stiffness between their bodies, pressing through the thin layers of fabric, and Gilbert’s kisses turn more urgent and wanting as his arms cage Alex into the mattress.

“Gilb- ah!” Alex gasps as Gilberts attentions move down to his neck again. Grazes of teeth followed by suckling and sweeping tongue, and Gilbert’s hands exploring Alexander’s thighs and sides and hips drive him to distraction. Alex stifles a loud gasp against his wrist when Gilbert’s lips suddenly close around his nipple. He sucks on the little stiffening nub and laps at it with his tongue until Alexander’s legs twitch and he lets out a quiet, drawn-out moan.

He snaps out of the distraction when Gilbert’s thigh comes down between his legs and presses down on his stiffening cock.

“Gil,” he grunts and squirms under the surprisingly purposeful stimulation, considering Gilbert’s earlier mental state. “Gil, maybe we shouldn’t be doing this right now.”

Gilbert looks up at Alex, and the stray light slipping into the room from the street glimmers as it hits his face. His eyes and cheeks are still wet with tears.

“Please,” Gilbert whispers. “Please, I just need to feel good right now.”

Alex gasps as Gilbert’s hand cups him, partly out of pleasure and partly out of surprise.

“I want to make you feel good too, pretty thing,” Gilbert murmurs and Alex can feel it vibrating against his ribs. He bites his lip, torn.

“I…”

Gilbert kisses him again, slow and pleading. His tongue sweeps over Alexander’s lower lip and he gives in and opens his mouth, brings his hands up to Gilbert’s cheeks and swipes at the sticky tear trails with his thumbs. He groans into Gilbert’s mouth as he rolls his hips against Alexander’s. It’s been a while since either of them has done this and it shows with the speed they both respond to the contact with.

Alex lets Gilbert flip him onto his stomach and peel off his shirt. He shivers as kisses are planted across the line of his shoulders, down his spine and his shoulder blades. Gilbert’s thumbs dig into his sides, sliding down to the base of his back and he groans as the tense muscles yield under the massaging digits.

“Do we have something to make it slide in better?”

Alex pauses – they’ve never done anything beyond handjobs and blowjobs before, and it hits him again how questionable of a time this is to escalate things and explore something they’ve never done before, even in a much steadier state of mind.

Gilbert’s teeth nip the back of his neck. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you.”

Alex jerks as a hand slips between his legs and rubs at his aching erection. _Oh, what the hell._

He reaches into a nightstand and grabs a packet of lube. There are no condoms, but neither of them has had new partners since they last got tested, which, still not ideal, but here they are doing this anyway. Alex reminds himself that it really sounds like Gilberts needs this.

“Hm,” Gilbert hums like the packet of lube is a point of intrigue somehow, and takes a moment to rip it open. Alex grabs his pillow and buries his face into it. “Hurry up, Gil.”

There’s a soft chuckle behind him. “Patience is a virtue.”

Alex scoffs. “You don’t get to lecture me about virtue.”

“Maybe so.” His boxers are pulled down to his thighs and what Alex expects to be a finger or two, is instead the blunt head of Gilbert’s slicked down dick, pressing at his rim. “Shh,” Gilbert hums at his ear as Alex stirs. “I’ll go slow.”

It’s the sort of a thing Alex is kinda into and has done before, sure, but- the fist time they do this, ever? Alex blinks in disbelief. He just always had Gilbert pegged as the extremely cautious type, always taking his sweet time with foreplay and then some. Usually it’s Alex trying to hurry things along, just wanting to get off while Lafayette makes it his mission to get closely acquainted with every erogenous zone on his body.

He doesn’t have much time to dwell on it though – Gilbert pins Alex into the mattress and starts to push his way in, inch by inch. He goes slow, just like he said he would, but he’s a well-endowed man and Alex is soon gasping and whimpering at the sting.

Gilbert groans, deep in his chest. “Oh, I missed this.”

Alex pants and balls the bedsheets into his fists, sweat dampening his forehead. His cock rubs against the coarse, cheap bedsheets (the nice ones are in the wash) and it provides minimal relief from the pain of being filled with no prep, no matter how much lube Gilbert used.

“Searing hot and perfect,” Gilbert sighs and half-bites, half-kisses his shoulder. He nudges his hips, past the rim, and Alex whimpers again, louder this time. “Taking me so well.”

“Gil,” Alex pants into the pillow. “Please slow down, I can’t-“

“You can ride me instead if you’d like?” Gilbert reaches down and strokes him off slowly.

Alexander’s entire body strains and quivers. Would he rather do that? It’s hard to think. He could set the pace better that way, but in a way it’s easier to lie down and focus on relaxing his muscles as Gilbert’s cock breaches him and fills him inch by inch. His entire body is pinned into the mattress by Gilbert’s and it’s gotten so hot Alex can feel the slickness of their skins sliding against each other.

“It’s alright,” Gilbert murmurs into his ear and nudges his hips forward again. “We’ll take good care of each other from now on, you and I.”

_What?_

Gilbert presses on and finally – finally- bottoms out. They both groan and Alex must sound like he’s been holding his breath underwater for several minutes. Gilbert stills and just strokes on Alexander’s skin, draws idle patterns on his shaking hips and counts his ribs. Alex barely catches his breath before the friction is back and Gilbert is pinning him into the mattress with his entire weight, hands on his hips, and thrusting slowly. He starts out with shallow nudges, and gradually builds up into brutal thrusts that make the bedframe slam against the wall and the bedsprings squeak.

Alexander’s body adapts to it because it has no other choice, and soon his whimpers start to turn into gasps and moans as the stretch starts to pass that threshold between painful and satisfying.

“That feel good?” Gilbert groans by his ear.

Alex nods and bites into his pillow – it’s not like the neighbors need to know how good, exactly.

But Gilbert isn’t happy with that. He yanks the pillow from under him and pulls his head back by the hair. “Let’s hear it.”

Gilbert switches into an angle that hits Alexander’s prostate even better and Alex lets out a choked-out moan. “Ahh, shit, Gil-“

The fingers twist in his hair. “Remember how good this is,” Gilbert orders and Alex is pressed into the mattress again, the thrusts only speeding up. “You gon’ come like this? Hm?”

Alex always expected they would cross this line with Gilbert eventually, but he never expected to find a whole different side of Gilbert on the other side. Cocky, demanding, and rough. Different.

“Not like this,” Alex pants. Prostate stimulation never takes him over the edge alone, that he does know even now that everything else swims in confusion and intensity.

“So demanding,” Gilbert murmurs, though it has to be in a playful sense. He wraps a hand around Alexander’s length again and jerks him off, quick and dirty. “Get off, then.”

And, well. He does. Between the cock pounding into him and Gilbert’s fingers stroking his length with an equally relentless pace, Alex comes with a strangled shout, writhing and twisting under Gilbert’s weight and spilling onto the bedsheets. At least they’ll have an excuse to change into the nicer ones now, is the ridiculous thought his head formulates along with the gut-punching relief flooding his muscles.

Gilbert seems to enjoy the display greatly; his fingers dig into Alexander’s hips with bruising force and his thrusts turn quicker and sloppier with every broken moan Alex chokes out. Alex flinches as teeth clamp into his shoulder as Gilbert lets out a long groan and stills inside him – that’ll leave a mark.

Not pulling out before coming and just leaving Alex to deal with the semen inside him – another very un-Gilbertlike act. Alex is too wrecked and boneless to think about it.

Gilbert pulls out with a squelch (Alex hisses), and finally releases Alex from under his weight. Alex rolls over and finds his lips sealed again. Gilbert licks into his mouth in a slow, satisfied manner (like a cat that got the cream) and then swipes his tongue over his own lower lip with a languid smile. Now that Alexander’s eyes are more accustomed to the darkness, he sees the look in Gilbert’s half-lidded eyes a bit better.

“You know, there used to be an art to seduction,” he says.

Alex blinks. His typical post-coitus sleepiness feels heavy on his eyelids, but something is keeping him from succumbing to it. Something raising the hairs on his arms. “What?”

“No matter.” Gilbert shrugs and slowly runs his fingertips down the center of Alexander’s sternum. “Irony is a fascinating thing,” he mumbles, eyes sweeping over Alexander’s naked form. “For decades I waited, for one of my useless offspring to take up an interest in the occult, to do something that would make them more susceptible to my influence, and for naught. I am forced to watch as a moronic decision after another leads the family to financial ruin.” Bitterness leaks into the careless tone, but Alex barely registers that. He’s completely focused on the way the man lying next to him just shrugged off the French accent like a coat and replaced it with a southern drawl with an aristocratic flair to it. “Everything my father built, everything _I_ built, lost. Auctioned off to the state. And the moment it’s all gone, _voila!”_ He gestures at himself. “I find myself with a man who has been opening himself up to the influence of the spirit realm for years.”

There’s a dull ringing in Alexander’s ears.

Not-Gilbert smiles. “I said I wasn’t going anywhere.”

Alex forces himself to look into those dark brown eyes staring into his, so familiar yet so decidedly _wrong._ It’s hard to point out where the difference really stems from; every atom of Gilbert remains the same. Alex would know the shape of those cheekbones and those soft, carefully exfoliated lips in his sleep. He even catches a waft of the blend of coconut oil and aloe vera gel Gil puts into his hair. But Gilbert’s blinding smile never makes Alex think about a wolf baring its teeth, and this stranger’s posture, as he lounges on his side leaning into his palm, is wholly different. Lazy in an arrogant sort of way. Entitled to the space it occupies. To the _body_ it occupies.

Fear and white hot rage roll sickeningly in Alexander’s stomach, but he remains perfectly still in his disgusting, sticky skin. “What are you?” he asks, his voice tight.

Not-Gilbert arches an unimpressed eyebrow and clicks his tongue. “Try another one.”

Alex grits his teeth. _“Who_ are you?”

Gilbert’s lips are twisted into a parody of an amicable smile. “I think you know that already.”

He does, despite of everything else Alex thought he knew about the universe and the laws it operates under.

“Thomas Jefferson,” he says, his voice hollow.

“At your service.” _Jefferson_ tries to kiss Alexander’s hand, but he yanks it away.

Where had Gilbert ended and Jefferson begun, and why didn’t Alexander _notice?_ He forces the thought down under the floorboards of his mind because it’s surely going to shatter him eventually, but that will not _help Gilbert_ and he needs to do that, he needs to save him from this monster in their bed.

“I could call an exorcist,” he says.

“You could,” Jefferson allows, casual and unbothered. “And it could work, or not.” His eyes sweep over Alexander’s bruised, sweaty, heaving body again and Alex finally scrambles to cover himself up even though he has already seen and taken everything he has. “But you won’t.”

“And why’s that?” Alex spits.

“I would know what’s coming, and I’m spiteful.” Jefferson’s smile is slow and solicitous. “Do you know how much damage I could do this pretty little head on my way out?”

He _doesn’t_ know, that’s the problem. It could be a bluff. It could be that all Alex needs to do is to smash the stupid chair or make someone chant Bible verses or fill the apartment with evil spirit-defying incense, and the demon would be forced to return to Hell where it came from.

The problem is that they both know Alex won’t risk it. He tries not to think about Gilbert as a hollowed-out husk of his former self (like a scraped-out cantaloupe, the way Alex feels inside), or Gilbert waking up every night screaming and sweaty, picking at his skin to make sure he’s still there, that he still has his body. Jefferson watches his face with a meaningful look in his eyes as Alex remains quiet. Looks at him with eyes that Alex wants to gauge out, but he _can’t_ because they’re Gilbert’s eyes. _Breathe._

He forces himself to keep asking questions, anything to distract himself from the oncoming spiral trying to suck him into its depths. “How long has this been happening?”

Jefferson shrugs. “A while. He did put up a fight, at first. Had to ease myself in when his defenses were down.”

So, nighttime. It checks out, if anything about the situation can be considered to make sense.

“And what is it that you _want,_ with Gilbert’s body?” Alex resents how weak and shaky his voice comes out.

“Well, the bad news is that my legacy is a lost cause.” Jefferson rolls onto his back and raises his arms _(Gilbert’s_ arms) over his head and stretches with a satisfied groan. “I don’t suppose my soul will be finding rest anytime soon. But the thing is, one learns to see things in a new perspective in death. Over the years, I mostly found myself missing the simple joys of life. Warmth on my skin, rich flavors on my tongue.” He rolls onto his side and smiles at Alex, eyes hooded. “Pleasures of the flesh.”

It’s not even what is being said that makes heat surge again in Alexander’s chest, but the casual delivery, like Gilbert is a pair of jeans for Jefferson to use and throw away once they fray. “How dare you-“

“I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives at odds with you, Alexander. For your own sake.” Alex bunches up fistfuls of his pillow as Jefferson slips under the blanket and curls up against him, like he had the night before, and who knows how many nights before. “I simply want to live a happy life, and you want your lover to be healthy. Out interests conflate, when you really think about it.” Alex moves one of his hands under the blanket and his fingers dig into the flesh of his thigh. _He’s completely deranged._ “And, forgive me for saying this, but I don’t think our friend Lafayette would want you to get on my bad side, either.”

Alexander’s teeth grind together and he has to force the words out. “Lafayette isn’t here.”

“But for a while he was, wasn’t he?” Jefferson says and smiles at the way Alex goes rigid. “Do you see how this is going to work from now on?”

He doesn’t say a word, just stares at the ceiling in furious, helpless silence as Jefferson wraps an arm around his middle and nuzzles against his shoulder.

“I’m not going anywhere, Alexander.”

**Author's Note:**

> I didn’t feel comfortable being like “Alex believes in ghosts because he’s from the ~exotic Caribbean~" but, conveniently, I live in Scotland so I did feel like I get a pass for acting like Scottish people are really superstitious for the purposes of this very questionable fanfic.


End file.
